Check the status of your ballot online

My ballot before it was mailed. I looked up its status online.

 This year was the year both Bakers voted in the Presidential Election by absentee ballot.

We have a lot of company; the numbers are astonishing on both a state and national level (but understandable because of COVID-19).

Now five days before the Nov. 3 election, roughly 70 million ballots have been cast nationwide and there were more than 700,000 absentee ballot requests in Iowa.

The neat thing is that those of us who sent in ballots in Iowa can check the status of them: Simply click on sos.iowa.gov and fill in the appropriate blanks.

In our case, we received our ballots in early October, took a while to find a perfect time to fill them out, and mailed them back in mid-month. 

Subsequently I was VERY interested in seeing where the ballots ended up. I checked online at the Iowa Secretary of State's site and was delighted to see both ballots had landed in the care of the Scott County Auditor's Office, Davenport.

Before we decided to trust the U.S. Post Office to deliver our ballots I was going to take them to downtown Davenport and put them in the box next to the Auditor's office. I also once considered handing them directly to Auditor Roxanna Mortiz.

However, while the USPS is under fire in parts of the United States, it is not in Eastern Iowa. 

I also prefer to vote in person, especially in the Presidential races. I have done this since I was 18 years old and voted at the Cedar County Courthouse in Tipton. In 2016, I voted at the McCausland, Iowa, city center. I also have voted early, in person, at the Scott County Administrative Center. That was in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected.

But concerns about the pandemic virus changed my mind in 2020. For his part, Steve has voted by mail-in ballot since 2012; he prefers sitting at the kitchen table to fill out his ballot.

This year, several members of the Baker family also voted by mail. One mentioned it took almost an hour, because she investigated each judge in her judicial district. 

Subsequently we learned an easier way to do this: Log onto the site: www.iowabar.org. You'll then choose "2020 Judicial Performance Review" and surf to the appropriate district. We in Eastern Iowa are in Judicial District 7. The judges are up for retention and listed on the back of the ballot.

November 3 will be a crucial day in the United States. One big plus: We will finish -- for now -- with political television advertisements, a benefit by anyone's measure.